The Dedalus Book of British Fantasy: 19th Century (European Literary Fantasy Anthologies)

by Brian Stableford

  "It is true," Jocelyn said briskly, and plucking up a little hope; "and if you think that obstacle insurmountable - if, I say, Mrs. Staunton, that fact stands in the way - I will at once withdraw." He half rose, as if to withdraw at once.

  "It would have been insurmountable in Nelly's case," said Mrs. Staunton, 'because my poor Nelly will have but a slender portion. With Caroline the case is different. The dear girl is provided for by her uncle's bequest; and though you will not be really rich, there will be enough. No, Jocelyn, the objection is not insurmountable, but I feel it my duty to state its existence and its nature. I want you to understand entirely my feelings. And, in fact, my dear Jocelyn," she gave him her hand, which he pressed, but languidly, "you have my full permission to go on with your suit, and my very best wishes for your success; because I think - nay, I am sure - that you already appreciate Caroline at her true value, and will make her happiness your only study."

  Jocelyn murmured something.

  "It is not often that two sisters get engaged on the same day," Mrs. Staunton continued, smiling; "yet it will please you to hear that I have this morning already consented to Nelly's engagement with Mr. Annesley."

  "With Annesley?" It was true, then. All was indeed over now. Yes: when one is already hopelessly crushed, one more wheel may go over without materially increasing the agony.

  "We have not known him long, but he bears, so far as we can learn, as good a character as one can desire. He is an intimate friend of your own, Jocelyn, is he not?"

  "He is," said Jocelyn gloomily. "He nearly poisoned me last Saturday."

  "That is indeed a proof of sincere friendship," the lady replied, laughing. "He and Nelly have been attached to each other, it seems, for some time, though the foolish couple said nothing to me about it; and at last - Well I hope they will be happy. In addition to other advantages, he has a large private income."

  "He has, I believe, about four thousand a year. Frillings did it, in Coventry."

  "Yes - yes - so many of our best families have made their fortune in trade. We must not think too much of these things. And he certainly has as good a manner as one would expect in an Earl." Then a smile, doubtless at the thought of the four thousand a year, stole over her motherly face. "It is certainly pleasant to think that the dear girl will have everything that a reasonable person can desire. His principles, too, are excellent. And he is, I am assured, a remarkably clever man."

  Jocelyn said nothing; he had, in fact, nothing to say, except that all young men with four thousand a year are believed to possess excellent principles.

  "And now," she said, "' you may go to Caroline. My dear boy, why - why did not your uncle, or your father, make money in frillings at Coventry?"

  He went to Caroline; but it was with creeping feet, as a schoolboy goes to school, and with hanging head, as that boy goes on his way to certain punishment.

  "What on earth am I to say to her?" he thought. "Am I to kiss her? Will she expect me to kiss Nelly instead."

  Just then Nelly herself ran out.

  "Oh, Jocelyn!" she said; "you have seen mamma? Of course it is all right. I am so glad! You are going to Caroline? - poor Caroline! You are going to be my brother! I am so glad, and I am so happy - we are all so happy! Did mamma tell you about me as well? Wish me joy, brother Jocelyn!"

  "My dear Nelly," he said, with a little sob in his voice - "I suppose I may call you Nelly now, and my dear Nelly as well - I sincerely wish you all the joy that the world has to give."

  She put up her face and smiled. He stooped and kissed her forehead.

  "Be happy, sister Nelly," he whispered, and left her.

  Nelly wondered why there was a tear in his eye. Her own lover certainly had not shed one tear since he first came a-courting; but then men are different.

  Caroline was calmly expecting her wooer. She half-rose when he opened the door, and her cheek flushed. She wished the business over.

  "Caroline," he said. But he could say no more; his voice and his speech failed him.

  "Jocelyn," she replied. And then, because in another moment the situation would have become strained - and, besides, he was a gentleman, and would not give her pain - and, again, if there was any mistake, it was his own folly that had done it - he took both her hands, and drew her gently towards him and kissed her lips, without another word of love or of protestation.

  Then he sat beside her, keeping her hand in his, and she began to talk of marriage and its duties, especially the duty of the husband, from a lofty philosophical point of view. It was agreed that she was to have absolute freedom: to take up any opinion, to advocate any cause, that she pleased. At that moment, because she varied a good deal, she was thinking what a splendid field was open to anyone, especially any woman who would preach Buddhism and the Great Renunciation. She made no allusion at all to her fortune, but Jocelyn perfectly understood that she meant to manage her house in her own way. As for himself, she designed, she said, a career for him. Of course, he would give up the F.O.; and so on. He mildly acquiesced in everything. His own slave had landed him in a slavery worse than anything ever imagined or described. He was to spend his life under the rule of a strong-minded woman of advanced opinions.

  VIII

  Then followed two or three weeks, of which Jocelyn thinks now with a kind of wondering horror. He was expected to be continually in attendance. He was expected to listen diligently. He was even expected to read a great many books, lists of which were prepared for him. Everything, he clearly perceived, was to be arranged for him. Very well: nothing mattered now. Let things go on in their own way.

  The worst of all was the abominable selfish rapture with which Annesley, of whom he now, very naturally, saw a great deal, treated him. The man could talk of nothing but the perfections of Nelly. As poor Jocelyn knew these perfections, and had every opportunity of studying them daily, the words of the accepted suitor went into his heart like a knife. Yet he could not object to listen, or contradict his friend, or show any weariness. To be sure, he might have conversed about Caroline, but it seemed ridiculous. Everybody knew that she was regularly and faultlessly beautiful; everybody also knew that she was strong-minded and held all kinds of views. Besides, he could not trust himself to speak of her. It was bad enough every day to speak with her.

  The two weddings were to take place on the same day, which was already fixed for the first week in July. It was arranged where the brides should spend their honeymoon - Caroline and Jocelyn in Germany; Nelly with her bridegroom at the Lakes. Meantime it was impossible not to perceive that Jocelyn, who ought to have been dancing, singing, and laughing, grew daily more silent and melancholy. Caroline, however, either did not or would not see this. Nelly, who did, wondered what it meant, and even taxed Jocelyn with the thing.

  "What does it mean?" she said. "You get your heart's desire, and then you hang your head and sit mum. Why, I haven't heard you laugh once since your engagement; and as for your smile, you smile as if you were going to have a tooth out."

  "Nonsense!" said Jocelyn. "I suppose men are always quiet when they are most happy."

  "Then Jack" - this was Annesley - "must be miserable indeed, for he is always laughing and singing and making a noise. Come, Jocelyn, tell me all about it. Are you in debt?"

  "No."

  "Are you - have you - " She blushed but insisted, "have you got any kind of previous engagement? Oh! I know young men sometimes entangle themselves foolishly" - what a wise Nelly! - "and then have trouble in breaking off."

  "It isn't that, Nelly. It really is nothing."

  "Then laugh and hold up your head. Or I will pinch you : I will indeed. You are going to marry Caroline, who is the most beautiful girl in London and the cleverest; and you go about as if you wanted to sit in a corner and cry."

  Jocelyn obeyed her, and laughed as cheerfully as a starving clown. When he went home, however, it was with a stern resolve. He would have it out with the Cap.

  In taking it out of the cabinet, however, he took wit
h it his uncle's letter and read it again. The latter part he read with new understanding: "moderation," "failure to comprehend," "want of obedience." Yes, there was something wrong with this Slave of the Cap. As for the Cap itself, it looked surprisingly shabby - far worse than it had appeared when he first got possession of it.

  "Now, " he said - the time was midnight, and he was alone in his chamber - "let us understand this." He took the Cap in his hand. "If you can appear to me, Slave or Demon, show yourself to me and answer for your blunders if you can."

  The same sensation of faintness which he had before experienced came over him again. When he opened his eyes, he saw before him the same vision of a tottering, battered old creature, with fiery bright eyes.

  "I have done my best, Excellency," said the Slave of the Cap, in a tremulous quavering pipe.

  "Your best! You have done everything that is stupid, blundering and feeble. What does it mean? What the devil, I say, does it mean?"

  "I beg your Excellency's pardon. If you had mentioned which young lady - "

  "Jinn! You knocked me head-over-heels down the back stairs."

  "It was the only way out of it. You wished to be out of it."

  "Slave of the Ox Goad of Religion! you stole the housekeeper's money."

  "I have always stolen money for your Excellency's ancestors. You cannot have other people's money without stealing it. This was the nearest money, and I was anxious not to keep your Excellency waiting."

  "You have covered me with disappointment and shame."

  "I am old, sir. The Cap is falling to pieces. I have slaved for it for five hundred years. After five hundred years of work no Cap is at his best." He looked, indeed, at his very worst, so feeble and tottering was he. "In love matters," he went on, "I am still, however, excellent, as the late Sir Jocelyn always found me. Up to the very last I managed all his affairs for him. If I can do anything for your Excellency now - "

  "You have already done enough for me. Stay -" a thought struck Jocelyn. "You would like your liberty."

  "Surely, sir."

  "You shall have it. I will throw this Cap into the fire - understand that - on one condition: it is that you undo what you have already done. It is by your blundering and stupidity that I have become engaged to Caroline Staunton. Get me out of the engagement. But mind, nothing dishonourable: nothing that will affect her reputation or mine: the thing must be broken off by her, for some good reason of her own, and one which will do neither of us any harm. For my own part, I don't in the least understand how it is to be done. That is your look-out."

  "Excellency, it shall be done. It shall be done immediately."

  He vanished, and Jocelyn replaced the Cap in the cabinet. It was with anxious heart that he lay down to sleep, nor did sleep come readily. He was quite sure, now, that the engagement would be broken off somehow, but he could not possibly understand how or why. There had been between them no quarrel nor the slightest disagreement - in fact, Jocelyn always agreed to everything: there was nothing, on either side, that was not perfectly well known; nothing, that is, as sometimes happens with young, men, which might "come out and have to be explained." How - But, after all , it was the business of his servant to find out the way. He went asleep.

  In the afternoon, next day, a note came to him at the Foreign Office. It was from Caroline, begging him to call upon her as soon as possible.

  "I have," she said, " a very important communication to make to you - a confession - an apology if you please. Pray come to me."

  He received this strange note with a feeling of the greatest relief. He knew that she was going to release him. Why or with what excuse he neither knew nor cared.

  Caroline was in her own room, her study. She gave him her hand with some constraint, and when he would have kissed her, she refused. "No Jocelyn," she said, "that is all over."

  "But - Caroline - why?" A smile of ineffable satisfaction stole over his face which she did not see. He would have been delighted to fall on his knees in order to show the depth of his gratitude. But he refrained and composed himself. At all event he would play the lover to the end, as he had begun. It was due, in fact, to the lady as well as to himself.

  "Jocelyn," she said frankly, yet with some confusion in her eyes, "I have made a great mistake. Listen a moment, and forgive me if you can. It is now eight years since a certain man fell in love with me - and I with him. My poor boy! I have never felt - I know it now - towards you as I did towards him. We could not marry because neither of us had any money. And then he went abroad. But he has come back - and - and - I have money now, if he has not - and oh! Jocelyn - do you understand, now?"

  "You have met him" - oh! rare and excellent Slave! - "you have met him Caroline, and you love each other still." He wanted to dance and jump, but he did not: he spoke slowly, with a face of extraordinary gravity.

  "Oh! Jocelyn." Could this be the same Caroline? Why, she was soft-eyed and tearful, her cheeks were glowing, and her lips trembled. "Oh! Jocelyn. Can you forgive me? You loved me, too, poor boy, because you thought me, perhaps, better and wiser than many other women. Better, you see, I am not, though I may be wiser than some."

  He gave her his hand.

  "Caroline," he said heroically, "what does it matter for me, if only you are happy?"

  "Then you do forgive me, Jocelyn? I cannot bear to think that you will break your heart over this - that I am the cause -"

  "Forgive you? Caroline, you are much too good for me. I should never have made you happy. As for me - " he gulped a joyful laugh and choked - "as for me, do not think of me. I shall - in time - perhaps... Meantime, Caroline, we remain friends."

  "Yes - always friends - yes," she replied hurriedly. Then she burst into tears. "I did not know, Jocelyn, I did not know! I thought I had forgotten him, indeed I did."

  He lifted her hand and kissed it with reverence. Then he left her, went to the Club, and had a pint of champagne to pull himself together. As for what people said, when it became known, that mattered nothing, because, whatever they said, they did not say openly to him.

  It may be mentioned that no alteration was made in the date of the double wedding, only that one of the bridegrooms was changed. It was a beautiful wedding, and nobody noticed Sir Jocelyn, who was up in the gallery, his countenance wreathed with smiles.

  When he left Caroline, Jocelyn went back to his chambers and prepared a little ceremony. He first lit the fire; then he took out the Cap and wrapped it in his uncle's letter. Then he solemnly placed both Cap and letter in the flames.

  "You are free, my friend," he said. "An old Cap and an old Slave are more trouble than they are worth. Perhaps, now that the cap is burned, you will recover your youth."

  There was no answer or any sign. And now nothing remains to Jocelyn of the family heirloom, except the picture of Sir Jocelyn de Haultegresse and Ali Ibn Yiissuf, otherwise called Khanjar ed Din, or the Ox Goad of Religion.

  F. ANSTEY was the pseudonym foisted on Thomas Anstey Guthrie (1856-1934) by the error of a typesetter (he had intended to sign himself "T. Anstey"). In the last decades of the century Anstey established himself as the master of Victorian comic fantasy with a series of novels in which magical objects cause havoc by disrupting the supremely conventional lives of assorted individuals, each of whom is in his own way typical of the mores and folkways of Victorian England. The first of these novels was the muchimitated and much-dramatised Vice Versa; or, a Lesson to Fathers (1882), in which a businessman trades bodies with his scapegrace of a son. This was followed by The Tinted Venus (1885), in which a hairdresser places a ring on the finger of a statue of Aphrodite and finds the reanimated goddess an extremely inconvenient fiancee; A Fallen Idol (1886), in which a young painter suffers the attentions of a malevolent Idol mistakenly elevated to godhood by unwary Jains; and The Brass Bottle (1900) in which a newlyliberated genie cannot be prevented from showering his rescuer with an extremely inconvenient embarrassment of riches.

  Anstey's shorter fantasies are more vari
ous in kind and tone. Early stories collected in The Black Poodle and Other Tales (1884) and The Talking Horse and Other Tales (1892) includes some broadly comic parodies of the popular ghost stories of the day, most notably "The Wraith of Barnjum" (1879) and "The Curse of the Catafalques" (1882), but later stories collected in Salted Almonds (1906) tend more to the grotesque and the sardonic. The early collections also include a number of stories for children, most of which are sentimental to the point of sickliness. "The Siren" is one of a small group of stories which contrive to combine all three of the major modes of nineteenth century fantasy: the moralistic, the comic and the sentimental.

  By F. Anstey

  Long, long ago, a siren lived all alone upon a rocky little island far out in the Southern Ocean. She may have been the youngest and most beautiful of the original three sirens, driven by her sisters' jealousy, or her own weariness of their society, to seek this distant home; or she may have lived there in solitude from the beginning.

  But she was not unhappy; all she cared about was the admiration and worship of mortal men, and these were hers whenever she wished, for she had only to sing, and her exquisite voice would float away over the waters, until it reached some passing vessel, and then every one that heard was seized instantly with the irresistible longing to hasten to her isle and throw himself adoringly at her feet.

  One day as she sat upon a low headland, looking earnestly out over the sparkling blue-green water before her, and hoping to discover the peak of some far-off sail on the hazy sea-line, she was startled by a sound she had never heard before - the grating of a boat's keel on the pebbles in the little creek at her side.

  She had been too much absorbed in watching for distant ships to notice that a small bark had been gliding round the other side of her island, but now, as she glanced round, she saw that the stranger who had guided it was already jumping ashore and securing his boat.